There are known systems which predict words on the basis of user inputted character sequences. One example of such a system is international patent application publication number WO2010/112841, titled “System and method for inputting text into electronic devices”, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. WO2010/112841 describes a system comprising a text prediction engine configured to receive user inputted text and to generate one or more text predictions using a plurality of language models.
As described in that application, to enter a term which does not exist in the vocabulary of a language model, a user can insert the term by inputting it character-by-character into the user interface of the system. The term is then stored in a dynamic language model, such that the term can be predicted at a later time.
Although the verbatim text can be input by a user, if the verbatim text does not correspond to a known word of the language model, it will not be predicted as a candidate word with a corresponding associated probability.
A problem with many known systems is that the system autocorrects verbatim input when the verbatim input does not correspond to a word known to the language model of the system.
Autocorrecting verbatim input by replacing the verbatim input with alternative word suggestions known to the system can lead to a frustrating user text entry experience. The autocorrect function inputs the most likely candidate, for example when the user enters a space, unless the user specifically indicates that the predicted word (which is the alternative to the verbatim text) is not what they want to enter.
Known systems are limited to predicting known words only (i.e. words which are present in the language model of the system). A problem with such an approach is that the system is limited by the vocabulary seen in the training data, and can therefore never offer verbatim input as a prediction candidate if that verbatim input does not correspond to a word in the language model.
It is an object of the present invention to address one or more of the above identified problems.